Monday, October 27, 2008

In the shower just a few minutes ago I couldn't help but think of you. I imagined you stepping in behind me. Running your hands over my wet body. As soap and water ran down my spine I imagined it was your fingers tracing that damp curve, trailing down to my wettest spot. I imagined you pulling me close, imagined curving my body to yours as you slipped inside me. The pounding of the water on me, on us. The way you pound into me, my breasts pressed against the cold tiles, your hands on my hips as you ride me. We'd orgasm together in a rush of heat and steam and then you would just hold me, spent and shuddering as the water cooled.

Miles and miles away from me, you are heading off to your busy day. I am, too. I will think of you all day long and wish for you a productive day, so that when you get home tonight you can let all that other world go. Just be with me. In our private garden, in our second life.

Friday, October 24, 2008

So Draven has been designing again. He has a new dress series called "Dove." Dove came out of a conversation about a tag Jinara picked for herself in our group. See we sort of accidentally developed this bird name thing.

The bird tags came about because Draven's shop is called Bird of Prey, and back when he started building he made a tag for himself to go along with that: "Black Crow." This is appropriate in many ways for him--he always wears black, his SL name comes from the movieThe Crow, and like the ravens that sat on Odin's shoulders he is always quietly observant, collecting information about the world around. He gave me the nickname "White Crane" because of the Decemberists song "The Crane Wife," which, he said, made him think of me. I liked that since my name, Tsai, means white or pale, and because the crane is a symbol in Asian folklore for wisdom, virtue, and longevity. One Japanese tradition also says if you fold 1000 origami cranes your wish will come true. That also seems right to me as I'd like to think I've made a lot of men's wishes come true (wink!) in my day.

When Wren joined us in SL (or maybe I should say when Draven turned her on to SL) she picked her bird name purposely to match her brother's; her tag is "Dark Bird," very appropriate for my lover's goth-chick little sister. My own sister, Jhai, joined us not long after and she picked the tag "Silent Swan" (she's had a thing for swans ever since Mom put a swan on the cake for her sixth birthday, though Jhai is anything but silent!).

Up to that point Jinara had just worn the standard member tag in our group: "Balance Seeker." In fact it was Jinara who started the group, so she was rather opposed at first to the "bird trend" as she called it. But then a couple months ago some of us were sitting around the table in the dining room, Jhai and Draven with coffee cups in their hands while I was sipping green tea, when in strolled Jinara wearing a tag that read: "Soiled Dove."

Jhai nearly snorted her coffee through her nose. "OMG!" she said to Jinara, "Do you have any idea what a 'soiled' dove is?"

"Oh, my dear girl, you just labeled yourself as a 'lady of the evening'!" replied Jhai, who was still chuckling as she (ever the teacher) explained it to a mortified Jinara, and a highly amused Draven and I.

It seems that in the 18th and 19th centuries the term "soiled dove" was applied in particular to gentlewomen (doves) who had fallen from some higher social strata into prostitution (thus soiled) by a need to support themselves after having been wronged and/or deserted by men. In fact, in one famous speech called the soiled dove plea, an attorney in 1889 convinced an all-male jury to acquit a woman facing prostitution charges by arguing that women were not to be blamed, but that it was instead men who should take the blame for the prostitution into which some women are forced.

I thought it was pretty funny that Jinara, who has been a dancer and a stripper but never an escort, should label herself as one inadvertently; while I, who have taken pay for my "services," was labeled as a crane, a sign of purity. No wonder Jhai found it hilarious!

I could see Draven's wheels turning as Jhai told the story, and I was right. Pretty soon he had the dress all planned out. Imagine the girl headed west to find the lover who has gone off to war--but he is not to be found. Her once beautiful best dress is eventually worn to shreds as she runs out of money and hope, and finally, in desperation, she turns to a life of prostitution to feed herself.

Draven built the dress with multiple looks. There is the pure white version, the white underdress with a softly dove-colored overdress, and then he made the same dresses in torn, tattered, and soiled fabrics. Both also come in long and short skirt versions.

This is me wearing the pure white Dove, and below I am wearing it with the overdress while standing to the left of Jinara who is wearing the Soiled Dove overdress version.

Funny thing about that tag "Soiled Dove" is that despite its connotations, Jinara (who is still young enough to disapprove of selling sex, of the SL escort business, with all the moral certainty of youth) is the one still wearing it.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

"When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her." --Adrienne Rich

Do you always tell the truth? C'mon, 'fess up. I suspect about half the time in our lives we tell other people not what we really think, but what we think they want to hear. We flatter the boss even when we think he/she is an idiot, we tell the significant other we do like his tie, or that she doesn't look fat in that dress. We tell the spouse that we did something that we meant to do, need to do, even when we haven't done it yet. And we tell the kids it won't hurt when it will, it is good for you when it may or may not be, and that there is a tooth fairy, an Easter bunny, a Santa Claus, and a Happy Ever After. Lies? Or convenient untruths?

Eddie Izzard, one of my favorite comedians talks about lies and says there ought to be levels, or degrees, of perjury like there are degrees of murder or any other crime:

"You have murder one, murder two; you realize that there can be a difference in the level of murder, so there must be a difference in the level of perjury. Perjury one is when you're saying there's no Holocaust when 10 million people have died in it, and perjury... nine, is when you said you shagged someone when you didn't."(from Tea and Cake or Death)

Here the lie that really sucks, saying: I love you, I care about you, or even I want you... when you really don't. That's Premeditated Perjury.

I haven't been writing much of late because I have been incredibly busy in both RL and SL. In RL it was back to school time, and in SL I have also been learning...to build! It all started with Draven's fascination with airships. See in Valis we kept getting weirder and weirder neighbors. First there was a giant ugly box of a castle with neighbors that had a loud obnoxious trivia game broadcasting day and night. Then they sold to a strip club with loud misspelled-text promotional ads that were broadcasting (you got it) day and night. That was always empty, so it sold to a couple who turned it into a large ugly purple club with loud gambling machines. To the other side of us is a really ugly house with big signs advertising a store. For a while now the only amusing thing about the neighbors has been guessing how long till they fold and move on and what ugly thing will turn up next! So Draven proposed we take down the Villa we'd been living in, and live in the airship high above all the chaos below.

Now we share space with several folks (it gets us a bigger space and larger tier). There is my older sister, Jhai; Draven's younger sister, Wren; my friend, Jinara (the group was actually her idea); her first SL boyfriend, Malcolm; Wren's friends, Hawk and Heron (We got this group bird title thing going, and Wren met them while camping when they all looked at each other's names); Dabrin, who is a friend/RL colleague of Draven's; and our most recent addition, Japhrimel, a friend and student of Jhai's who I think of as our younger brother.

But if we were going to move up into the sky what did that mean for our friends? One big family meeting later (well, really it all us girls, Japh, and Draven, since Hawk didn't care and Mal and Dabrin are never around much anymore) we decided to move all of us up into the sky. First we placed Draven's airship, the "Nereide."

Then Jhai bought a second airship, the "Selene."

And Draven rezzed a copy of the ship he'd built for Jhai's SL workplace, a green glass blimp I promptly christened the "Vitreaux."

I had a grotto with a pool and a waterfall (by Juanita Deharo), so I built a big flying hunk of concrete to place it on. It has wind chimes, a Straylight tree, an Isle of Mists waterlily that opens and closes with the sun, and 2 lily pads Jhai found that we can float on. Inside the grotto are candles, a small waterfall and pool, and a grassy place that will be just right for Draven's Kamasutra rug (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Draven's Rustica furniture and the lovely claw-footed tub he made (for one or two!) also needed a place to be, so I built a large flying rock garden. I took a large, rocky, sculpted megaprim and made an edging of boulders from the library by matching the textures, added a grassy patch Draven had made (for our old yard below), flowers, trees, and then linked the whole thing.

I am particularly proud of the L-shaped bridge that links the Grotto and the Flying Rock because I built that all by myself. The base of it is 2 prims with mahogany planking texture, but nowhere could I find an iron railing texture. Then I remembered a freebie iron-topped table I had in inventory--I took it apart and used the texture on the transparent prim that was the table surface, and stretched it out with the texture repeating for the rail (thank you, oh unknown builder, for your lovely table!). It took a bit of finagling to get it all to line up so I could link it, but one thing I have learned from Draven is not to give up. When you are frustrated, walk away and come back later. It will be a better build if you do.

Jhai and Wren popped in from time to time to give me advice, and Draven came by to check up on me and teach me a new trick here or there, but mostly I just arranged and rearranged all by myself. I've placed our Intan couples dance balls everywhere, and a Bits and Bobs kiss or two around for Draven and I (or for Jinara and her next mad crush). I can't wait to see Draven tonight and show him around. I got him a present too, a murder of crows from WaterMoon Breeze to fly around his ship and the shop below.Oh, yes, down below Draven rebuilt the villa as the main store for Bird of Prey Designs. Come by and see his dresses and Steampunk gear, stay tuned for more of his furniture builds, and if you want an airship skybox of your own, just IM him--I am certain he'd build you one, too.